These are the Facts
by peroxidepest17
Summary: Remix of ilanabean42's "Simple Truth”: Akira fumbles towards honesty.


**Title:** These are the Facts  
**Universe:**Nobuta wo Produce  
**Rating:** PG  
**Character/Pairing/s:** AkiraxShuuji  
**Warnings/Spoilers:** Weirdness+random  
**Word Count:**2,074  
**Summ****ary:** Remix of ilanabean42's "Simple Truth" - Akira fumbles towards honesty.  
**Dedication:**Written as a pinch-hit for ilanabean42; also, I want to give special thanks to mousapelli and crystallekil for all their encouragement and idea-bouncing when I was whining miserably to myself about being unable to pull this off. I credit them both for the ideas (and the attitude) that helped me finish this rather than give up completely.  
**A/N:**To be honest, the reason I said I'd pinch hit for the exchange was because it was such a small one that I was pretty sure no one would actually_ need_ me to do it, but I guess that old saying about assuming still holds fast. XD So forgive me if this is a bit rushed; I'm also not sure if this follows the remix exchange's rules _exactly_ but I will cite that whole loophole where the source material wasn't at least 1,000 words, thus forcing me to expand on the story. A lot. And I continue to be lame a titles.

* * *

On Monday that week Akira dreams about ninjas, which isn't an uncommon occurrence because he thinks ninjas are cool. What is uncommon about it is that these ninjas are very much not cool because they attack his school and declare that Akira is their one true enemy; they say that they have to defeat Akira in order to advance in their ninja-ranks.

"Ninjas have ranks?" Akira says in his dream, and looks puzzled.

"Shut up!" the lead ninja says, and tries to punch Akira. But Akira is strong and dodges easily; he punches the ninja back and sends him staggering back into the blackboard. It promptly cracks.

"Curses!" the ninja screams, and whistles for help.

His ninja-friends spring into action then, and burst into the door holding Shuuji by the arms, a kunai pressed to his throat.

"We're issuing a challenge!" the first ninja tells him, "and we're taking your friend hostage! Come to the ice-cream shop you like by the pier at midnight. Come alone or we'll kill him!"

"Shuuji!" Akira shouts, and feels a sick dread start to well up in his stomach as Shuuji looks back at him with wide, frightened eyes. "Let him go!"

"The ice cream shop! Midnight!" the ninja reiterates, before throwing a smoke bomb onto the ground and creating a thick screen of fog that completely blinds Akira. In the meantime there are a lot of whooshing sounds, and when the smoke finally clears the ninjas are gone; Shuuji is gone with them.

"Now for differential equations," Akira's teacher continues in his dreadful monotone once the commotion is over. He starts writing on the board as Akira clutches his head and screams, "Shuuuuuuuji, nooooooo!!"

"_What__? _Would you_ wake up_?_"_ a voice answers, sounding irritated and mortified, and that's when Akira blinks his eyes open and realizes that he's in Calculus class. Everyone is looking at him oddly.

"Is something the matter, Kusano-kun?" their math teacher asks in that horrific monotone.

Akira is confused; he swipes at the corner of his mouth where there is some drool. "What happened?" he asks Shuuji in a whisper that might as well be a scream.

"You fell asleep," Shuuji supplies, red-faced.

"Shuuji!" Akira exclaims when he realizes what that means. He reaches out and hugs the other boy passionately. "I'm so glad you're okay!"

The class continues to stare; Shuuji turns redder and pushes Akira off.

* * *

On Tuesday night Akira dreams about Shuuji's school uniform doing a dance to the opening for _One Piece_in Akira's closet. Akira's sneakers watch and clap to the rhythm with the ends of their laces, using them like hands. Akira's sneakers end up each giving the school uniform a perfect score of ten points when the song is finished.

When Akira wakes up from the dream (right at the part where the sneakers start to dance _with_ the school uniform) he blinks groggily to himself and looks over to his closet door, thinking that the dance wasn't really worth a full ten points because it was off rhythm. It probably only deserved eight points at most.

That decided, he rolls over and promptly goes to back to sleep; when he tells Shuuji about his dream at school later that day and asks him what he thinks it all means, Shuuji just looks at him funny and tells him to stop watching anime before bed.

* * *

On Wednesday during Physics, they learn that every object in the universe attracts other objects in the universe to it with a force along the centers of those two objects that is proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the separation between the two objects.

It's how the moon orbits the earth and the earth orbits the sun and blah, blah, blah.

Their teacher goes on and on about it while Akira gets bored; he looks to his side where Shuuji is diligently taking notes and wonders if people count as objects and if the two of them are pulling on each other too. His thoughts start to drift and before long Shuuji is the sun and Akira is the earth and he's spinning, spinning, spinning in space and not able to bear it because it's so bright.

"What are you doing?" Shuuji hisses under his breath a few minutes later, and Akira stops; he realizes that he's still sitting in his chair, hands in front of his face as he whispers, "_too bright, too bright_!" under his breath over and over again.

Shuuji, he thinks, looks concerned.

Akira manages a smile. "The sun is bright, ne," he says, like that explains everything.

Shuuji raises his hand and asks the teacher if he can go with Akira to the nurse's office. "I don't think he's feeling well."

* * *

That night, Akira agrees to stay home from school tomorrow at Shuuji's behest because Shuuji thinks he's coming down with something. "You've been spacing out more than normal and you keep muttering things that don't make sense whenever you do," Shuuji tells him as he reaches out to touch Akira's forehead with the back of his hand.

Akira only feels feverish when Shuuji does that, and says so. "Maybe your hand is so warm it warms the rest of me up when you touch me," Akira poses, and Shuuji turns pink around the ears for some reason.

"I don't think that's how it works," Shuuji tells him.

Akira thinks it makes sense to him, but Shuuji is smart so Shuuji probably knows best; when Shuuji pushes him down into his bed and tells him to go to sleep Akira listens even though he feels fine again.

Shuuji goes to school alone that day and it's painfully boring and lonely for Akira to be cooped up all day at home all by himself. When it's around dinner time and Akira thinks he can't take it anymore, Shuuji shows up at Akira's door again, right in the nick of time. He's carrying a bag full of conbini bentos and instant miso soup.

When Akira offers to help microwave things and heat the water for the soup Shuuji tells him to stay in bed and rest; he uses that voice that tells Akira that Shuuji will get mad if he doesn't listen.

So Akira stays in bed like he's told and listens to the sounds of Shuuji puttering around his kitchen; it makes him feel warm all over again and he puts his own hand on his forehead to see if the fever is back. It's not.

"I'll stay over tonight just in case," Shuuji assures him after they've eaten and he's touching Akira's face with the back of his hand again. He clucks thoughtfully to himself at what he finds there and then goes to the closet to pull out the spare futon, laying it out next to Akira's. "Even though I think your temperature is normal, I'll stay tonight. So if you need anything or if you feel like you're going to throw up or something, don't be afraid to wake me up, okay?"

"Okay, Shuuji," Akira says, closing his eyes after the lights go out and he hears Shuuji crawl into the blankets next to him.

That night Akira dreams about Lawson's karaage and Shuuji reading the morning paper at the table as he eats it; Akira is cutting his toenails in the living room and there's a TV making pleasant noise in the background. When Akira squints he thinks he can see a group of idols who are stuck on a desert island; they seem to want to eat karaage too.

When he wakes up the next morning, Shuuji is making breakfast in the kitchen and as Akira walks in, he remembers that his TV is broken.

"How are you feeling?" Shuuji asks him, bangs tied up as he breaks the eggs into the pan. "Do you want scrambled or over easy?"

"Do we get the newspaper?" Akira asks, and doesn't know why.

Shuuji makes them scrambled and tells Akira that maybe he should stay home again today.

* * *

On Thursday night of that week, when Akira finds himself walking down the streets of Tokyo all by himself, it all finally starts to make sense; it's nighttime and quiet and he can see a beautiful half-moon and a thousand stars shining brightly in the sky over his head. That's a little bit weird he thinks, the seeing stars part, because in the city you can't see the stars unless you imagine them real hard; you have to close your eyes and invent constellations all on your own for there to be any stars at all.

"Oh hey, there's the Cheese Constellation!" he exclaims to himself, when he recognizes one that he made back when he was in his second year of primary school. He laughs out loud because it looks exactly like a wheel of cheddar with a cute little mouse sitting on top of it. He doesn't know why it's called the Cheese Constellation and not the Mouse Constellation, but sometimes that's just how things work.

"What a strange night," he marvels to himself, and wishes Shuuji were here to see the stars too, because whenever Akira tries to explain the Cheese Constellation and the others to Shuuji, Shuuji always looks kind of confused and tells Akira that he doesn't get it. Then Akira tries to tell him about the Cowboy Constellation, because maybe that would be cooler than cheese, but by then Shuuji just kind of sighs and says, "Okay, okay" in a way that means he still doesn't get it but is too tired to say anything else.

The minute he starts thinking about Shuuji like that is when he starts to hear the sound of pounding footsteps; Akira stops to look over his shoulder.

What he sees is the Truth Man, rounding the corner and heading straight for him, his arms up in the air over his head as he shouts, "Tell me the truth! Tell me the truth!" over and over again.

Akira starts to run.

He runs and he runs and he runs and all the while he thinks to himself, "_What am I lying about_?" as the sound of footsteps follows him no matter how fast he moves.

"Tell me the truth! Tell me the truth!" he hears, and Akira starts to sweat as he thinks about it, kind of like how he did when he thought Shuuji was kidnapped by ninjas or when Shuuji touched his head and when Shuuji made him breakfast.

"Tell me the truth! Tell me the truth!" the Truth Man insists, and Akira starts to breathe harder and he feels like he's moving slower and soon the Truth Man is right there, looking at him. He reaches out and grabs Akira's arm. "Tell me the truth!" he insists.

"I love Shuuji!" Akira screams without thinking, while he's trying to shrug the Truth Man's hand off of him.

But he doesn't have to because the Truth Man lets go first; he gives Akira a look and then runs off in another direction, arms up over his head again.

And then Akira is alone.

"I…" he breathes, and looks up at the Cheese Constellation and the Cowboy Constellation and a new one that's being written in the sky, the one that looks like two guys sharing a Sombrero.

"…I love Shuuji," he says, and finally _gets_it.

Akira wakes up from that dream at three a.m. and spends an hour and a half staring at the ceiling afterwards, thinking very seriously to himself.

Then, at four thirty, he smiles to himself. "So that's why," he murmurs eventually, "the sneakers gave out so many points."

He falls back asleep feeling much more relaxed than he'd been all week.

* * *

On Friday the following day, when he and Shuuji are walking back home along the beach after school, Akira sees the sun low and brilliant on the horizon and the way Shuuji's school uniform moves when he walks; he feels that warm, hot feeling in his chest again and something like worry but not quite.

In the back of his mind, he can hear "Tell me the truth! Tell me the truth!" being chanted over and over and over again.

"Shuuuuuuuji," he manages eventually, because he feels like he has to, because maybe he owes it to Shuuji and to himself, "I saw the Truth Man last night."

**END**


End file.
